Wine, Dine and Christmas Crimes, Maria Swan [best short novels of all time .TXT] 📗

No cameras? Then how? Officer Clarke, Bob to his friends. The stupid blabbermouth. He must be the reason I was standing there in the middle of the listing from hell with two uniformed cops and two homicide detectives staring at me like I was a chocolate-covered donut with sprinkles on top. Although I had no clue why Americans always joke about cops and donuts, this was probably not a good time to ask.

Might as well get this over with it. I pointed to the den, and they followed me there.

“What do you want me to do? The bed looked unmade, Leeann Brown asked me to make it and stash the stuff scattered around inside a closet, and that’s what I did.”

“Leeann Brown is...?” Detective Adam asked.

“She’s Leslie Brown’s sister. They are both Realtors. They work together. Leslie works with clients. She’s the official listing agent for this condo. Her sister works from home, you know, paperwork? At least I hope so after the way she yelled at me this morning.”

“You talked to her this morning?”

I explained the sequence of the phone calls between myself and the witch named Leeann. They didn’t seem to care much, they wanted to know about the bed. So annoying. Finally I had it. I grabbed the edge of the cover and jerked it back. As I expected, the flat sheet came along with the light quilt and the daybed looked pretty much the way it did twenty-four hours earlier.

“There. Are we done?”

If only. That was where the questions began. Did I touch the fitted sheet covering the mattress? Did I fluff the pillow? Spruce up this or that? All I can say is that obviously dear Bob forgot to share with the detectives my love of housekeeping. Once they accepted the fact that my idea of making a bed involved two parts—first, pull up the covers—second, make sure the underneath mess doesn’t show through. Done.

They asked me to show them where I stashed the clothing. Except I wasn’t allowed to touch anything, only point to the cops wearing rubber gloves. That part was actually pretty cool. I felt like I was in charge of the show. Come to think of it, I was. That didn’t last long. Maybe cops are all blessed with telepathic powers because within minutes everything came to a stop, and it was decided that more help should be summoned over.

“What did you do after you locked up?” Eve asked me.

“Nothing. I left.” Three words, that’s all. Okay, I did hesitate a nanosecond between nothing and I left, sort of catching my breath while my brain processed the I left part. I had told the truth, fingers crossed no one would ask where I went once I got in the elevator. Apparently I didn’t cross enough fingers.

“You left to go where?” Adam, of course.

Now what? I remembered the security camera inside the elevator, and the sense of guilt sucker-punched me for logical reason. What if? I stretched my right wrist, the hand closed in a fist but for the thumb, sort of a Facebook LIKE.

“Up,” I stated, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Wanted to take a look at the pool, you know. But I couldn’t.” I fidgeted, switched my weight to the other foot, and it felt as if with that small gesture the burden of the whole world fell on me. All I could think about was the dead girl alone in the dark, floating on a mass of icy water above the city streets filled with Christmas celebrations. “Why?” I whispered the word to no one in particular.

“Monica, are you okay?” Eve’s voice sounded almost caring.

I shrugged. “Need to eat I think. Anyway, I went up to the top floor, but to get to the pool you need a special key which I didn’t have. So I went back to the elevator and out of there. You probably already knew all that from the cameras, right?”

And as if I said a magic word, the four of them looked at each other and then at me. At me, like I was the genie who wafted out of the bottle.

“What time was it?” Adam asked.

“Before noon. I remember getting into my car, and my clock said 11:45. Why are you asking me all these questions? That was the first time I had set foot inside The Nest, and in retrospect I wish I never did.”

Adam frowned as if I had offended him. Who knew? Maybe he had money invested in this high-rise.

“You were here on Thursday, the night of the drowning,” he said, matter of fact.

“No, I wasn’t. Is that what this is all about? You think I knew this girl? Or...wait...you can’t be serious. I don’t know where you get your info from, but yesterday was the first time ever I set foot inside this building. The only thing I did on Thursday evening was deliver the hors d’oeuvres to Brenda who was catering a party at Kay’s place And by the way, I met Leta, her assistant outside the service entrance, handed her the trays, and left. You can ask Leta.”

“Oh, we will. We will,” Eve said. “Meantime, let’s take a ride to the station.”

“Station? What station? I’m not going anywhere, I’m here to do an open house.” The anger and confusion were getting to me. These people actually assumed I had something to do with the death of this...Ana?

“There isn’t going to be any open house, not today or any day soon.” She turned to the other cops. “We need to lock up and seal the place until we get forensic here.”

I have been watching detective shows for years and knew exactly what that meant and that brought more senseless fears to my soul.

My fingerprints would be found everywhere, of course.

ELEVEN

IS THIS SOME kind of joke?

The room looked more like a typical office than a police station. Nothing like the interrogation rooms in the cop shows on television. Adam and Eve, real names Ryan Ross and Liz Reid, were going out